Unicorn Point

  She put Greased Hills in the bottom left column. That was a mistake on her part; he could handle grease by poking his points through to the sand beneath.

  He put Cross Country in the center of the third column, then realized that he should have put it in the bottom center column, giving him three good choices in the bottom row.

  She filled in the last box with Dust Slide. He liked dust no better than snow; that spoiled that row for him.

  Now the grid was complete.

  TERTIARY GRID: 1A5F Physical Naked Separate, Variable Surface

  Snow Bank Maze Path Glass Mtn.

  Tight Rope Sand Dunes Cross Country

  Greased Hills Dust Slide Limestone

  He had the choice of rows or columns. He chose the rows. She would figure him to take the middle row, because two of his choices were there, so she should choose the center column, to stick him with Sand Dunes. Therefore he chose the top row.

  But she, for what reason he might never understand, had selected the third column. The result was Glass Mountain: one of her choices, but really not bad for him.

  They adjourned to the mountain. As true mountains went, this was small, but as inner-dome artifacts went, it was big. The mountain was indeed formed of glass, or at least had a glass exterior. It was broad at the base, and slanted up to a peak about ten meters high. It was ridged and channeled, with many facets and some almost vertical cliffs which represented impassable barriers to naked—i.e., bare-handed—folk. Its contours were changed for each game, so that there was no point in memorizing its outline. It was normally so constructed that a person could not simply pick a gentle slope and mount to the top; he had to ascertain, usually by trial and error, which route was feasible, and do it before his opponent did. The first one to the top was the winner.

  This was “separate”; that meant that one player could not directly interfere with the other, such as by shoving him off the mountain. But the categories were seldom pristine; there was inevitably some interaction, as when one player got to the best route before the other and so forced the other either to follow behind or to choose another route. In this case there was an added fillip: water bombs. These were little balloons filled with water which, when burst against the glass, made it too slippery for progress. A player could take as many bombs as he could hold, and use them to reduce the friction of the path his opponent had chosen. The effect lasted only a few seconds, but could make the difference when both were racing toward the top on different paths.

  Troubot feared that his wheels would be more susceptible to slipperiness than Tsetse’s feet, because she could step over wet spots while he could not. But he had greater capacity to hold water bombs. He could fill his hopper with them, while she could carry only what she could hold in her arms. Still, he did not know how agile she was, or what the best route was. This was still anybody’s game. The audience evidently thought so; the monitor lights indicated a massive viewing, which could not be accounted for solely by the importance of the contest.

  Of course. Tsetse was a lovely young woman. That would account for a significant enhancement of the number of viewers. She would be bending over to scramble up tricky slants, and perhaps taking spread-legged tumbles. That sort of thing was always big with the serfs. They would be rooting for her, to win or tumble or both, but their reactions did not matter, because they would not be audible here.

  They started. Tsetse ran to the mountain and clambered nimbly enough up the first channel that offered. Troubot went instead to the bomb dispensary and carefully set a dozen into his hopper. This might raise his center of gravity and make his climb more difficult, but the bombs should be more of an asset than a liability.

  Tsetse’s channel faded out, leaving her on a flat facet whose tilt was more to the vertical. She climbed this carefully, her toes just beginning to skid. She was about four meters up. Troubot waited below, watching carefully, analyzing the slope she navigated; it did not matter who tested it, for this purpose.

  Then, just as she was about to reach the top of the facet so that she could step onto a more promising new channel above, Troubot flexed a metal arm and lofted a water bomb. His aim was good, of course; the bomb landed just above her, and the water coursed down across her feet. Friction diminished abruptly. She screamed as she lost her footing and slid down to the base of the mountain, in exactly the fashion the audience had hoped for.

  Troubot did not wait to watch; he was not a living human male and would have had no gratification from the sight. He had merely taken the opportunity to test the efficacy of the water so that he could estimate the coefficient of friction before and after. He believed she was on the wrong path, but wasn’t sure, so this would set her back while he tried an alternate route himself.

  He found a facet that started steep, but curved to diminish the angle above. He started up this one, his wheels barely holding at the base. Yes, this seemed more promising; above the facet was a channel that curved upward around the mountain. He rolled up this.

  Splat! A water bomb struck his body. It burst, and the water cascaded down around his wheels. Traction was gone; he slipped helplessly, and in a moment was at the bottom. The mountain had a soft curtain or buffer at the base, to absorb the shock of landings, so that players would not be hurt by their involuntary slides. But he had lost his progress. Tsetse had retaliated.

  Troubot realized that neither of them would be able to make progress if things continued like this; one could always remain at the base and bring down the other. But they were hardly likely to cooperate. So he rolled around the mountain, looking for a third route of ascent; he would have to let the woman try her own at the same time. If she got ahead of him, near the top, he would throw another bomb and stop her, while she would be unable to carry bombs aloft and still use her hands effectively for climbing.

  She did not follow; evidently she was satisfied to return to her first path and follow it farther up, while he tried his new one. He was certainly ready for that, because he believed the odds were against either of the others being the right one.

  He found a new route, and moved up it. This was the best one yet; it slanted slightly to the side, but took him two thirds of the way up toward the peak. If it went all the way—

  It did not, exactly. It abruptly became vertical, and he could not ascend farther. Would he have to go all the way back down, while Tsetse continued on up? No, he saw a gentle ledge to the right that sloped toward her original route. He maneuvered very carefully, and managed to get fairly on it. He rounded the curve of the mountain—and there was Tsetse coming up toward him.

  He picked up a bomb from his hopper, but hesitated. If they met on this path, there was evidently no future in it for either of them. What was the point in washing her off it? Better to leave her here, where she could go nowhere.

  But she seemed to have a similar notion. She clambered to the side, and down the mountain. Her feet skidded, but it didn’t matter; she was going down anyway. Before he could do it himself, she was down and around, going for the first path he had tried.

  He pondered. He could go down and around himself, and loft a bomb at her, stopping her progress. But she would do it back to him the moment he tried. Meanwhile, he was already well up on the mountain, now; if he could find a way to intercept that other path, and get on it ahead of her, he could win.

  He tried, but the mountain was implacable: he could not get to the other path. He could only see her head come into sight as she reached the point he had before she bombed him.

  She seemed on the way to victory.

  But he didn’t have to be at ground level to stop her! He threw his bomb in a high arc over the curve of the mountain. It came down neatly on her head. “Oh!” she sputtered, but she did not lose her footing. His aim had been good, but she had moved, so that the bomb had hit her instead of the path before her.

  He lofted another. This time she lifted her hand and caught it. It broke, but did not dislodge her. The water needed to strike her feet, or the
path upslope, to be effective; her head or hand dissipated its effect too much.

  If he threw another, she might manage to catch it unbroken, and hurl it back at him. He decided to wait for her to resume her climb, so that he could score on the path while her hands were occupied in climbing. But she waited, watching him. She might not be the smartest of women, but she was canny enough for this! It was a standoff.

  But as he waited, another thought came to him. The first path had not gone anywhere, and neither had the third. It seemed likely that none of the paths that started at the base went all the way up. More likely, the final path would begin somewhere farther up. The player who figured this out first, and got to it, should be the winner.

  But where could such a path be? He had been balked by the vertical tilt of the third path, and managed to cross to this one. The mountain was not large enough for many more sites.

  He retraced his route. This time he saw it: another slight ledge piking up on the other side of the vertical path. It looked as if it did not go anywhere—but that could be deceptive.

  He moved slowly and carefully, and managed to cross to that other ledge. Then he heard something: there was Tsetse, well up toward the peak, on the other side; all he saw was her right shoulder. Her path did go all the way up, and he had wasted time trying for this other one.

  But he still had a chance. He brought out another water bomb. He threw it up, not at Tsetse, but at the peak of the mountain itself. The bomb came down on the point and broke; its water flowed down mostly on Tsetse’s side.

  She made an exclamation of horror; then she slid down. But the slope immediately below her was not steep, and the amount of water had been slight; she managed to recover after only a meter or two.

  Meanwhile, Troubot found that his new path did move on up. It was a better path than it seemed from below; the curvature of the mountain tended to conceal it. He followed it up, and soon realized that it, too, reached the top.

  Tsetse was climbing again. Troubot threw another bomb, and rendered her path slippery again. She had to wait for it to clear before proceeding, and meanwhile he continued his ascent. She apparently had no bombs of her own. His decision to load up on them seemed to spell a critical advantage for him.

  Then, as he was almost close enough to touch the peak and win, she moved. She did have a bomb; now it was looping toward him.

  Its aim was good; it was going to splatter on the path just above him. He could not reach it in time. He did not try. Instead, he hurled a bomb of his own, not at Tsetse, but at the other bomb.

  The two bombs met in air, and exploded. But his had been thrown later and harder, and its force carried the spray of water away from the path. Some water fell, but not enough to dislodge him. He paused to be sure the path was not too wet, then proceeded on up.

  Tsetse, peering around the slope, saw this, and scrambled toward the peak herself. Troubot lobbed another bomb at her, and washed her back down to the lesser slope again. Before she could recover, he made it the rest of the way and clapped his metal arm on the top of the peak.

  A gong sounded. He had won!

  Tsetse, below, looked so forlorn that he knew he would have felt terrible remorse, had he been a living man of her species. But as it was, what he felt was more like joy.

  Chapter 13

  Clip

  It was a long trek to the Ogre Demesnes, but Clip was glad for it, because it gave him time to think. He had to represent the Adept Stile against the ogres, and he was not at all sure his unicorns could win this siege. These days of travel with the Herd allowed him many hours to ponder strategies.

  In the evenings and nights the Herd grazed, sleeping afoot. Clip intended to do the same, but this evening he summoned his sister and niece for a conference in human form.

  “My mind be taut with doubt,” he confessed. “It be easy for others to say a ‘corn can beat an ogre, being faster, smarter and more versatile, but that be illusion. In single fair combat it be cither’s win.”

  “Aye,” Neysa agreed. She had had experience with many kinds of creatures, and had long since lost the bravado of youth.

  “But can a ‘corn not run an ogre through belly or heart with horn, and be done with it?” Fleta asked.

  Clip looked at her. In human form, as in her natural one, she was much like her mother. Each had the same black hide, and the socks on the hind feet: Neysa’s white, Fleta’s golden, in contrast to his own blue hide and red socks. In this human form that meant black hair and black clothing, and white or yellow socks. Neysa was old and Fleta young, but that seemed to be most of the difference between them. He was so glad they had reconciled at last!

  “A ‘corn can run an ogre through, aye,” he said. “But an ogre can smash a ‘corn dead with one blow o’ his hamfist.”

  “But ogres change form not,” she persisted. “A ‘corn could assume an aerial form and fly in close—”

  “And the ogre will throw a rock and knock that flyer out o’ the air,” Clip responded. “Their aim be deadly!”

  “Then in manform, with weapons—good bows and arrows!” she persisted.

  “An ogre can hardly be hurt by an arrow; it only tickles his hide. He can throw a rock as far as an arrow can fly, so the bowman needs must look to his own hide.”

  Fleta was silent; she now appreciated the problem. Unicorns normally ranged the fields, running and grazing; they seldom encountered ogres, who were more attuned to the jungle, and to canyons, where there was plenty to bash. In addition, she had been much occupied in recent years with her romance with the rovot, and the raising of their foal, and the loss of that foal. How would she know about ogres?

  “How relate they to music?” Neysa asked.

  “That be uncertain. I was traveling alone once, and was playing my horn, and came upon an ogre who seemed to be sleeping. I paused, wary o’ him, and then he woke and growled. I was tired, and sought not a fight, so pretended to see him not. I resumed my playing and trotted on, and he just stood there listening. After, I marveled, and thought mayhap he had liked my playing; the Adept Stile has termed my horn a mellow saxophone. But I be not sure; mayhap the ogre was tired too.”

  “This accords with what I have noted,” Neysa said. “Methinks the ogres like music, or at least be intrigued by it.”

  Clip was interested. “Thinkst thou that many would pause for a serenade?”

  “Mayhap.”

  “We could do a rare show,” Clip said, working it out. “Dancing in step, to our music, keeping a strong beat. An it distracted them, it be a fan way to fight.”

  “In a siege?” Fleta asked, growing excited. “But that were folly for them!”

  “Ogres be magnificently stupid,” Clip said. “Folly be well within their capability.”

  “But how can we be sure? If we set up to play, and it worked not—”

  “Aye,” Clip said. “Needs must we verify the effect, privately, lest we run great risk.”

  “I will go ahead and play for one!” Fleta said eagerly. She changed form, and pranced as she played her pan-pipe horn, two melodies in counterpoint.

  Clip paused. It had been years since he had heard her play. He had forgotten her unusual talent: one horn, two tunes! It was a very pretty effect. She might have done well in the Unilympics, had she not been barred because of her miscegenation with the rovot.

  Then he returned to the serious business at hoof. “Not thou, niece. Thou be too inexperienced to risk thyself thus. I will do it.”

  “But we seek to know the effect o’ a chorus,” she protested, returning to girlform. “At least let me go with thee, so we can play together. That be a fairer test.”

  How neatly she had diverted his decision! She had not opposed it, merely modified it. He could not have tolerated the former, for as Herd Stallion he had a position to maintain, but could accept the latter. “Aye, then. But stray thou not far from me, an we hit ogre country.”

  “Nary a hoofprint!” she promised.

  “Cover for us,” he
told Neysa, who nodded. If anything occurred that required his attention, she would handle it without revealing his absence. The Herd could continue grazing undisturbed. Of course there were lookouts posted; nothing would come upon the Herd by surprise.

  They started out, trotting side by side. He was fatigued from the days of constant travel, but the notion of finding a way to distract the ogres invigorated him, and he stepped right along. Fleta, younger, kept pace. He had had little to do with her, because she had been absent from the Herd most of the time, but unlike Neysa, he had not condemned her association with the rovot. In fact, he had been privately understanding. The rovot looked just like Bane, and she had always been Bane’s friend, and more than a friend. Animals were not supposed to have sexual encounters with human beings, but there was always a certain amount of experimentation that occurred, particularly among the young.

  He himself, in his youth, had encountered a human village girl who had required cheering; she had shied away from him at first, until he showed her that he was a unicorn. His problem had been that he was a stallion cast out of the Herd, a “lesser male” who was denied sex with mares of the Herd until such time as he became strong enough and bold enough to challenge a Herd Stallion for dominance. Her problem had been that she loved a village lad who did not love her; she had not wished to be unfaithful to him, lest he change his mind and return to her. But she did not regard a relationship with a unicorn to be significant in that manner. In addition, she was inexperienced, and wished to gain a better notion what it was all about, so that she could acquit herself well if the opportunity arose. So there had been an affair, and they had learned much together. Unicorn mares were interested in sex only when they came into heat, whereas human girls could do it anytime. It had been most interesting.

  Then the man of her interest had returned, and Clip had departed speedily and quietly. It was understood that neither of them would ever tell others of this matter; it had been purely a private thing, of no larger significance. He had never had a relationship with another human girl, but he remembered that one with fondness. Of course it had not been as good with her as with any true mare, but it had been good enough, and he had liked her. So now he respected his niece for having the courage to do openly what was normally done secretly, and to fight for her right to her relationship despite the condemnation of her dam and most others.